FORECASTING LYME DISEASE RISK

预测莱姆病风险

• 批准号: 2457878
• 负责人: Richard Simon Ostfeld
• 金额: $ 7.79万
• 依托单位: INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-08-15 至 1999-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2457878
• 关键词: Aves; Borrelia; Ixodes; Lyme disease; Mammalia; Peromyscus; angiosperms; animal ecology; animal population density; arthropod borne communicable disease; communicable disease control; disease /disorder proneness /risk; disease outbreaks; disease reservoirs; epizootiology; field study; fluorescence microscopy; food chain; health behavior; host organism interaction; human ecology; public health; rural area; squirrel; statistics /biometry; vole

Currently, Lyme disease is growing in both number of cases and geographic distribution in the U.S. Because no vaccines currently are available for public distribution, prevention of Lyme disease has involved educating the public to reduce risk of exposure to tick bites. The proposed research will provide a foundation for further efforts at public education by increasing our ability to predict when and where infected ticks will be most abundant. This research involves new initiatives to understand relationships between tick hosts, ticks, and spirochetes, that strongly influence Lyme disease risk. We propose to test a series of specific hypotheses regarding the ecological determinants of distribution and Borrelia-infection rates of I. scapularis in a semirural area in Dutchess County, New York. We will expand upon ongoing studies of resource (including acorn) abundance, small mammal abundance and diversity, abundance and distribution of host-seeking and attached ticks, and tick infection rates in five distinct habitat types representing landscapes typical of the northeastern and upper midwestern U.S. We will conduct replicated acorn removal (in mast years) and acorn addition (in nonmast years) experiments to test the hypothesis that, in forests, acorn abundance in autumn determines density of larval ticks the following summer. To test the hypothesis that nymphal tick abundance and infection rates are determined by the community structure of vertebrate hosts, we will live trap and mist net virtually all mammalian and avian hosts within several habitat types. The habitat types are expected to differ in host community structure. By collecting fed ticks from a complete array of potential hosts, we will be able to relate the proportion of larvae feeding on reservoir-competent hosts to the infection rate of nymphs and adults the following year. We will also test the hypothesis that density-dependent dispersal by P. leucopus causes predictable shifts in the habitat distribution of ticks between the larval and nymphal stages. This will be accomplished by enlarging current trapping grids to encompass patch boundaries in order to capture and examine dispersing mice. Our data will be instrumental in devising host- management strategies for controlling Lyme disease. Our ultimate goal is to forecast in which habitat types and in which years humans will be at the greatest risk of exposure to bites from infected ticks, and hence to contracting Lyme disease. The ability to forecast Lyme disease risk will require an understanding of the ecological interactions between resources, tick hosts, and ticks. We expect three more years of study in our system will establish sufficient ecological knowledge to allow forecasting with high probability. This knowledge will be disseminated to public health professionals and others important in public education regarding Lyme disease. Moreover, we will test our model's prediction that high species diversity in the host community will reduce or eliminate risk of Lyme disease; these results can be applied to environmentally sound host-management. Our data for Dutchess County, NY, will be used to evaluate the emergence of the enzootic cycle in nonendemic areas surrounding our region.

目前，莱姆病的病例数量和地域范围都在增长 由于目前尚无疫苗可用于美国 公共分发，莱姆病的预防涉及教育 公众减少被蜱虫叮咬的风险。拟议的研究 将为进一步努力开展公共教育奠定基础 提高我们预测受感染蜱虫何时何地出现的能力 最丰富。这项研究涉及新的举措来了解 蜱虫宿主、蜱虫和螺旋体之间的关系， 影响莱姆病风险。 我们建议测试一系列有关的具体假设 I 分布和疏螺旋体感染率的生态决定因素。 位于纽约达奇斯县半农村地区的肩胛肌。我们将 扩展正在进行的资源（包括橡子）丰度研究，小型 哺乳动物的丰度和多样性、寻找宿主的丰度和分布 和附着的蜱虫，以及五个不同栖息地的蜱虫感染率 代表东北部和上游地区典型景观的类型 美国中西部我们将进行重复的橡子去除（在丰年） 和橡子添加（非桅杆年份）实验来检验假设 在森林中，秋季橡子的丰度决定了幼虫的密度 接下来的夏天。 检验若虫蜱的假设 丰度和感染率由社区结构决定 脊椎动物宿主，我们将生活在几乎所有哺乳动物的陷阱和雾网中 以及多种栖息地类型内的鸟类宿主。栖息地类型有 预计宿主社区结构会有所不同。通过收集喂食的蜱虫 从一系列完整的潜在主机中，我们将能够将 以具有储存能力的宿主为食的幼虫感染的比例 次年若虫和成虫的比率。我们还将测试 假设 P. leucopus 的密度依赖性扩散导致 蜱幼虫之间栖息地分布的可预测变化 和若虫阶段。这将通过扩大电流来实现 捕获网格以包围补丁边界，以便捕获和 检查分散的老鼠。 我们的数据将有助于设计主机 控制莱姆病的管理策略。 我们的最终目标是预测哪些栖息地类型以及哪些年份 人类被感染病毒叮咬的风险最大 蜱虫，从而感染莱姆病。预测莱姆病的能力 疾病风险需要了解生态相互作用 资源、蜱虫主机和蜱虫之间。我们预计还有三年 在我们系统中的学习将建立足够的生态知识 允许以高概率进行预测。这些知识将会 传播给公共卫生专业人员和其他重要的公共人物 有关莱姆病的教育。此外，我们将测试我们的模型 预测宿主群落的高物种多样性将减少 或消除莱姆病的风险；这些结果可以应用于 对环境无害的主机管理。我们关于纽约州达奇斯县的数据， 将用于评估非地方性动物流行周期的出现 我们地区的周边地区。